IntroductionThe
performance increase of home video products over the past three years,
paired with precipitous price drops, is nothing short of unprecedented.
50-inch HDTVs that only a few years ago cost $20,000 today cost less
than $2,000. Never before have we seen video technology get so good so
fast and for so little money. Companies like Vizio have gone from
no-name brands to literally billion-dollar ventures today, providing
consumers with access to HDTV video that can be the core of a truly
respectable home theater at Costco prices.

Not to be
outdone, Sony has stepped into the fray of incredibly powerful video
with their Pearl projector that at last fall’s CEDIA trade show threw
the world of consumer video projectors on its ass. This $4,999
projector drew attention from reviewers, dealers and competitors alike
with its bright image, 1080p resolution, slick aesthetic and amazingly
low price tag.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I need to point out that if the
projector’s model name, VPL-VW50, seems a bit odd or dare I say
pedestrian, it’s because of the fact that most folks have come to call
the VW50 by its code name: the Pearl. What makes the Pearl so special?
For starters, it is a sight to behold; it’s simply stunning to look at,
with its opalescent white top and graphite colored sides. The Pearl is
rather large by most front-projection standards, measuring
15-and-a-half inches wide by seven inches tall and 18-and-a-half inches
deep. The Pearl is also quite heavy, weighing in at a hair over 24
pounds. The Pearl is rather unassuming in terms of flaunting its
technology. In fact, aside from its center-mounted lens, the rest of
the Pearl’s casing is virtually void of any hi-fi paraphernalia. The
Pearl’s inputs are located on the right side (looking from the front)
of the projector, tucked neatly back (or behind, depending on how you
mount the projector) and somewhat out view, furthering its sexy
industrial design. Turning my attention to the Pearl’s inputs, I was
pleased to find a barrage of options, most impressive being not one but
two 1080p-capable HDMI inputs. The Pearl also has a PC monitor input,
as well as single S-Video, composite video and component video inputs.
The Pearl has a trigger input, which can be used in conjunction with
your motorized projection screen, as well as a RS-232 port for
third-party control support from the likes of Crestron or AMX. The
Pearl’s detachable power cord receptacle is located towards the
backside of the projector to keep it clear of your video connections,
as well as hidden out of view. The Pearl’s manual controls rest above
its input connections. However, the Pearl was clearly designed to be
calibrated and operated via remote, which I’ll get into later.

Under the hood, the Pearl boasts some rather impressive specs. For
starters, the Pearl is a true 1080p projector, with a native resolution
of 1920 by 1080 produced by its three HD SXRD panels. For those of you
new to SXRD (Silicon Crystal Reflective Display), it is essentially
Sony’s adaptation of LCD technology. It’s not a true LCD design in that
SXRD is “reflective” (much like DLP and LCoS), with light “sandwiched”
between liquid crystal panels, whereas in a true LCD design, light is
passed through the liquid crystal panels directly. This “reflective”
approach helps the Pearl to use its lamp more efficiently, resulting in
higher contrast numbers and light output.

The Pearl also supports standard-definition resolutions (480/60i,
575/50i, 480/60p, 575/50p), as well as other high-definition formats
(720/60p, 720/50p, 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/24p, 1080/60p). However,
its 1080p capabilities are reserved for its HDMI inputs. The Pearl has
a reported contrast ratio of 15,000:1, with a maximum light output of
1,200 ANSI lumens. The total contrast ratio and light output is
achieved when the projector is set to dynamic, with its Advanced Iris
feature engaged but, once calibrated for optimum picture quality you
can expect those stats to decrease significantly. Still, the Pearl
should produce one hell of an image on any reasonably-sized screen
(roughly 120 inches diagonal) in a darkened environment, specs be
damned.

Which brings me to the remote. While ISF calibrator and fellow
AVRev.com writer Kevin Miller generally praises Sony remotes, I have
not previously shared his enthusiasm. In this case, the Pearl’s remote
is rather good. It is simple is as simple does and performs what is
asked of it with relative ease. It features full backlighting, albeit
with the press of a button, and is easy enough to navigate without
having to concentrate too hard. The Pearl is sometimes sluggish to
respond to the remote’s signal, but this is a minor annoyance compared
to my past experience with other Sony remotes. The design team gets a
pat on the back from this picky editor.

Set-upThis
past holiday season, I bought a new house and immediately began the
ever-stressful process of renovating it. At the heart of my reno is my
new state-of-the-art dedicated home theater. While construction has
been anything but smooth, due mainly in part to the truly incompetent
national chain Empire Today, which I hired to do my flooring, the
ordeal is nearing its end, giving me time to spend with my new video
projector.

In the past, I’ve been a bigger is better
sort of guy when it came to screens. However, after spending some time
with Kevin Miller, I’ve changed my tune a bit. In reality, your
projector is only as good as your screen and, if you go too large, you
won’t be getting all of the performance you paid for. So, with Kevin’s
guidance, I settled on a 92-inch diagonal screen from Screen Research.
Screen Research, for those of you who may not know, is a Parisian
company specializing in THX and ISF-certified, acoustically transparent
projection screens. Acoustically transparent screens are nothing new.
However, Screen Research’s take on them is a bit different in that they
use a proprietary woven technique and material unlike the competition’s
micro-perforated designs. The layout of my room was going to
necessitate my center speaker being installed in-wall and behind the
screen and their system fit my needs for picture quality and sonic
transparency amazingly well.

I mounted the Sony Pearl about 12 feet back from my screen, using a
universal ceiling mount from Sanus. The Sony Pearl has a pretty
generous vertical lens shift, which allows it to be mounted fairly
close to the ceiling without having to use a great deal of keystoning
to correct for the angle, although it has zero horizontal lens shift.
The Pearl’s lack of horizontal lens shift isn’t a deal-breaker here,
but it does mean you have to pay attention to insure that the Sony’s
lens falls dead center on your screen. Once the Pearl is mounted, you
can use the remote to better dial in the image through the use of
several Tron-like green grids. I found this part of the installation
rather tedious, since the Pearl is sluggish to respond to the remote’s
commands. You end up having to calibrate by anticipating the remote’s
timing, then by being able to make exacting moves. This is especially
bad when you’re trying to focus the projector. I can’t say for sure how
many four-letter words were spewed out during this process, but it was
enough to best my 3,000 word quota. If you’re at all uncertain or
nervous about what I’ve just said, then you should consider allowing
your local Sony dealer to install your projector for you.

Once I had the Pearl mounted, I connected it to my Meridian G68
controller via a set of component video cables from Ultralink. I let
the G68 do all of the video switching between my Dish Network HD
receiver, Toshiba HD DVD player and Meridian G98 transport. I connected
my Sony BD-1 Blu-ray player with Ultralink’s HDMI cable directly to the
Pearl to better take advantage of its 1080p capabilities. As for
speakers, I went with my new Meridian in-walls (review coming soon)
with the low bass being handled by my ever-ready LFM-1 Plus subwoofer
from Outlaw Audio. All cabling came by way of Ultralink and XLO.

With my system in place, I began the calibration process. I cued up
Digital Video Essentials and began going through the Pearl’s video
controls to better enhance the video experience. Out of the box, the
Pearl is very impressive with its rich, detailed blacks and vibrant
colors. However, as you begin to calibrate the Pearl, it becomes
apparent that the projector is way too bright and has a distinct blue
shift throughout its color pallet. This is easy enough to fix with
little effort, thanks to the Pearl’s stellar menu layout and control
options. In about an hour, I was able to achieve a beautifully accurate
image.

Movies And TelevisionI
kicked off my evaluation of the Pearl with the Rose Bowl match-up
between USC and Michigan (ABC HD). Say what you want about the BCS or
the pairing of these two teams: nothing could take away from the
stellar picture quality of the HD presentation. In a recent
conversation with AVRev.com publisher Jerry Del Colliano, he admitted
that he’d rather stay home and watch USC games than go to the games
themselves, due to the excellent quality of today’s HD sports coverage
and the image he can get on a nine-foot screen with his Meridian MF1
three-chip D-ILA projector and Faroudja video processor. After my time
spent watching the game on the Pearl at one-eighth of the price of the
AVRev.com reference video system, I’d have to agree. The color
rendering was punchy and vibrant, yet accurate and true to life. The
Pearl’s ability to resolve and track the subtle details in varying
shades of color was awe-inspiring. The image was lifelike in its
three-dimensionality, with terrific edge detail and appropriate
sharpness. As impressive as the color was, it was the Pearl’s low-level
detail, mainly in the blacks, that showed off all that the Pearl had to
offer. The darker blue hues of the Michigan players’ uniforms never
became flat or one-dimensional. At times, the darker hues were richer
and more enticing than the Trojans’ own scarlet red. The Pearl’s image
was as free from digital and motion artifacts as any projector I’ve
seen at or above its price point.

At
half-time, I jumped over to catch a bit of Discovery HD’s marathon of
their beautifully shot series Discovery Atlas: Brazil (Discovery HD
Theater). The phrase “looking through a window” gets used a lot when
describing a lot of today’s high-end HD displays. Well, the Pearl isn’t
a window to the image, because windows are often dirty and have a layer
of film or grime that keep them from being crystal clear. Therefore,
the Pearl’s image is not like a window so much as it is the event.
Having never been to Brazil myself, I’d have to say the Pearl’s
presentation of the vibrant country is second only to being there. The
show’s many city shots were jaw-droppingly beautiful. The decaying
ancient buildings, with their striking, unique architectural details,
were something to behold, going far beyond just looking old. Each of
the buildings’ weathered facades told a story as individual as a human
fingerprint and were portrayed without incident through the Pearl’s
exceptional optics. Again, the Pearl’s ability to portray depth came
closer to the feeling of being there than that of any other projector
I’ve seen, ever. The show’s colors were even more vibrant and rich when
compared to the Rose Bowl. To say Discovery has mastered the art of HD
would be an understatement. HD can prove harsh on the “beautiful
people,” but in the documentary realm, the harshness only adds to the
drama, and the Pearl dished out the drama in spades. Moving beyond the
descriptive, the Pearl is the first projector I’ve come across that
speaks to the heart of the visual event, in the sense that it appeals
to me on an emotional level more than an analytical one. I’ve never in
my years of writing ever referred to a video product in this way
before. The Pearl is that good.

Next,
I went for some more traditional DVD flair with Pirates of the
Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Walt Disney Home Entertainment). With my
Meridian G98 transport set to 480i, I braced myself for a
disappointment from the world of standard definition, yet I was
pleasantly surprised. Now the G98 is one hell of a DVD player, but the
Pearl is no slouch, either. The lower resolution of DVD was not as
dramatic a difference from HD as I had anticipated, which is a
tremendous endorsement for why a Meridian DVD player should be
considered for your reference system if you have a top-performing
projector. The Pearl-Meridian combo handled the film’s many epic
sequences with grace and composure. While HD may have it over film in a
lot of ways, it can still appear a bit hyper-real, or what I like to
describe as “glassy.” Well, Pirates is an excellent film-based transfer
and it comes with a greater sense of lifelike realism. The colors,
while not as punchy, had even greater sense of depth and dimension. The
black level detail was superb, especially in the masts and hull of the
Black Pearl. Edge fidelity and detail were out of this world and no
scene showed this more than when we see Davy Jones’ ship, the Flying
Dutchman, for the first time. If I was one of the wizards at ILM
(Industrial Light and Magic), I’d want everyone to have a Pearl in
their home so that all my hours and late nights spent texture-mapping
the many CG elements in the film were not lost to poor displays. I’ve
never seen a film as richly detailed and nuanced as Pirates and, thanks
to the Pearl, I felt as if I didn’t miss a thing. DVD video was simply
riveting on the Sony Pearl paired with the Meridian G98 DVD player.

I
saved the best for last, and ended my evaluation of the Pearl with the
Blu-ray transfer of Superman Returns (Warner Home Video). With
everything set to 1080p, I was ready to rock. From the start, Superman
didn’t disappoint. The first scene that caught my eye was when Lex
Luthor (Kevin Spacey) discovers Superman’s Arctic hideout for the first
time. I’ve spoken a lot about the Pearl’s black level detail and color
saturation, so I’ll part with that and speak to its white levels. All
too often displays, especially projectors, are calibrated, or should I
say not calibrated, to take advantage of the lighter elements or white
levels of the image. Well, during the hideout scene, the Pearl’s white
values were pristine and well-defined, with terrific edge fidelity
completely void of blooming or pixilation. I’ve spoken about the
Pearl’s ability to resolve minute details in subtle color variations.
The same holds true for shades of white. The Pearl’s gray scale
rendering throughout the darks is equaled in its ability to resolve and
render the lights with comparable precision. The reflections that
occurred between each of the crystals were distinct and could be easily
traced to their sources when the image was paused. The level of detail
during the first cave scene is what HD, more specifically 1080p, is all
about. Skipping ahead to the plane sequence, I was treated to an action
smorgasbord unlike anything I’ve seen before. This sequence has it all,
beautiful blue vistas, deep space, fire, rapid camera shifts, the
works, and the Pearl didn’t trip up nor even bat an eye. Sony touts
their dynamic iris technology a lot with their projectors and I
experimented with it with varying results. Lesser dynamic iris can
sometimes cause eye-jarring shifts that are anything but natural as the
projector attempts to better juggle between extreme darkness and light.
The Pearl doesn’t fall into this camp at all and, when implemented
properly, benefits the image and, more importantly, the perceived
contrast. I must say this, though: the difference between having the
feature active or inactive isn’t as great as I would’ve thought.
However, I did leave it on for the duration of my review. Back to the
action, the Pearl was able to track it accurately and display it fully
and faithfully. The baseball stadium at the end of the dramatic
sequence is as captivating as any moment that comes before it. In
standard definition, the sold-out crowd would’ve been but a blur, but
the wide shot revealed individuals with unique fashion sense and
personalities. I could even read a few t-shirts here and there from my
favorite seat on my sofa; to call the Pearl a detail whore might sound
mean if it wasn’t so true.

The DownsideWhile
I think the Sony Pearl is nothing short of a marvel in terms of
performance, there were a few areas, mainly in ergonomics, that keep it
from being the absolute best component ever sold to the world of home
theater. For starters, the lack of any sort of manual lens adjustment
is a major omission, compared to other projectors in the Sony’s class
both above and below its price point. Lacking the ability to focus the
projector is beyond a pain in the butt when setting it up. If your
system engineers have everything mapped out perfectly for your
installation, then maybe it’s no big deal, but I think we all live more
in the real world than a perfect world. Focus and other screen
adjustments are many times quite helpful.

Next is the
issue of fan noise. The Pearl is quieter than my old Panasonic LCD
projector, but it is by no means silent. Those mounting or placing the
Pearl in open view need to be aware that the projector will emit a
slight whirring noise that is audible during quiet passages. If you can
swing it, I would recommend a hush box of some sort to combat the
issue.

Like all HD displays these days, the issue of standard definition keeps
coming up and the Pearl is not exempt from this issue at all. While the
Pearl is simply stunning with HD material and rather impressive even
with DVD, it can’t turn water into wine and standard-definition
material often looks average compared to the outrageously good video
you see from DVD, HDTV broadcasts and 1080p HD disc formats such as
Blu-ray. There are a few work-arounds: the easiest, perhaps, is
watching only HD content, but this is not necessarily practical. I
would suggest adding an external scaler, such as DVDO’s VP50, to aide
in spicing up less than stellar standard-definition programming.

ConclusionThe
gauntlet has been thrown down, the line drawn in the sand, and there is
no turning back. The Sony Pearl is all that and more and I’m here to
say to the competition, you’ve been warned. While I like Sony’s code
name of choice (Pearl), I feel perhaps, a new name might be in order. I
would be so bold as to call it “The Bar,” for it is. The Pearl is the
new benchmark for its price point and beyond. It is the best projector
real money can buy, and while I don’t want to get into the habit of
proverbially calling the Super Bowl in week one, I will say that I’m
confident I’ve just spent time with AVRev.com’s 2007 product of the
year. How confident am I that this projector is an incredible value? I
bought one.